Billy Rubin goes to Coronado

John Stabb with Government Issue at City Gardens, Trenton NJ, Photo: Ken Salerno

Billy Rubin delivers more from his personal punk archives, a never ending vault we hope to constantly draw from here- Gordo DCXX

I am a late bloomer when it comes to technology, but I finally got an iPOD and was going crazy with it one Sunday and I burned Government Issue’s “Joy Ride” Lp. I started to remember when I first got that record and in turn I remembered a really strange So Cal punk rock story.

This had to be in 1985 and I was either 15 or had just turned 16. My parents went on a quickie vacation to Coronado (San Diego). They didn’t trust me to stay home alone so I was forced along for the trip. I was bored out of my mind with no one to hang out with. I was left to roam around Coronado with my skateboard (a 12” wide Alva deck, Gullwing super pro trucks and SIMS snakes wheels). While skating around the island, I found a book/record store that had a very small selection of punk records. I bought GI’s “Joy Ride” and Reagan Youth’s 12” with the big fold out poster/sleeve. That was cool, but it was only about 4pm and I had absolutely nothing else to do. I kept hoping to find a fellow punker to hang out with or a cute girl that would somehow be into a dork like me. I was probably on the verge of resorting to some sort of vandalism or other punk rock kind of foolishness when the most amazing thing happened.


Scream at TT's, Boston Mass, Photo: Karla Brian Simmons

I was skating on the main drag and a car came to a screeching halt right beside me. The people in the car had spotted me because I was wearing blue creepers and a Doggy Style shirt. The car was packed with a bunch of punkers and was driven by a guy named Sergei. This guy Sergei yelled over to me “Do you want to go check out a show?” He told me that SCREAM was playing at some place called Wabash Hall. I asked them if they could give me 15 minutes to skate back to the place my parents were staying and get their permission and then meet them back on the street corner. They agreed, I talked my parents into it, and went to the show.

As it turned out, SCREAM’s van broke down and they didn’t make the show. The upside was that at the show I met Martin Sprouse from Leading Edge zine and later Maximum RocknRoll. Later on I interviewed Martin for THINK zine. A year or two later, I had an “in” at the MRR house in San Francisco because of this chance meeting in San Diego. All of this happened because I was wearing blue creepers and a Doggy Style shirt!

At the time, Doggy Style was one of the two best bands in OC (UC being the other). Over the years I saw Doggy Style play countless shows at venues ranging from VFW halls to roller rinks to Fender's. They always played a great set and as time went on they morphed into a freak show. I’ve gone into the Billy Rubin punk rock archives to find some old pictures of Doggy Style performances. Notice that Brad has a strap-on dildo sticking out of his fly!


Brad X with Doggy Style, Photo: Billy Rubin


Brad X sporting the strap-on and more at Fenders, Photo: Billy Rubin